The Christmas meal is a perfect opportunity to cook a dinner that is packed with zippy, fresh and varied flavours, a delicious roll-call of courses that partner perfectly with good wines, and which add fire to the festive spirit.
And so, we have simply taken the traditional dishes of the celebration, and given them a Mediterranean accent, in order to add a lightness and freshness to a meal that can incline to the stodgy. The oysters are breadcrumbed and fried and offset with a lemon dressing, or you could choose the marvellous poached pears to begin with. The turkey is flavoured with chillies and garlic, and in the place of the traditional bread sauce, we have suggested a couple of punchy, flavoursome partners for the bird. Such a fine feast deserves a good boozy conclusion, so a lush brandy ice cream is just the business to put alongside your brightly flaming pud.
Oysters Chez Panisse
Darina Allen includes this sublime recipe for fried oysters in her stylish new book, A Year At Ballymaloe Cookery School (Gill & Macmillan). Eddie Walsh, a chef at Ballymaloe House, brought the idea back from his annual pilgrimage to Chez Panisse, in San Francisco. It is simple, gorgeous, and worthy of your very best bottle of white wine, but be warned: four oysters each may not be enough!
A selection of lettuces and salad leaves
16 oysters
Lemon Oil Dressing:
1 large shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons wine or champagne vinegar
175ml (6 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil
Zest of half lemon
Zest of half orange
Salt and freshly ground black pep per Seasoned flour
Beaten egg
White fluffy breadcrumbs
Clarified butter Garnish:
Snipped flat leaf parsley Serves 4
Wash and dry the lettuces and salad leaves, then make the dressing. Put the finely chopped shallot in to a bowl and add the orange and lemon juice. Season well. Whisk together all the remaining ingredients for the dressing and add to the shallots.
Open the oysters and remove from their shells. Drain in a sieve over a bowl.
Just before serving, toss each oyster in seasoned flour, beaten egg and white breadcrumbs. Melt a little clarified butter in a pan and cook the oysters over a moderate heat until crisp and golden on all sides.
Meanwhile, toss the salad leaves in a little dressing. Put a fistful of salad on each plate with four crispy sizzling oysters on top. Sprinkle with snipped flat-leaf parsley and serve immediately.
Spicy Poached Pear with Gorgonzola
This is a most unusual dish, not only because it pairs fruit with chilli, but also because it can be served, substituting mascarpone instead of Gorgonzola, as a dessert. We think it makes a sensational first course, however, in which the deep red pears are offset by the creamy blue of the Gorgonzola, with just a few salad leaves for contrast.
It is a splendid idea from Peter Gordon's splendid book, The Sugar Club Cookbook. The aroma as the pears cook is pure, perfect Christmas, the sort of scents that make you want to eat it while watching James Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life.
6 firm cooking pears, such as Comice
1 red chilli
1 bay leaf
6 cm (23 inches ) rosemary sprig
2 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
Zest and juice of 2 lemons
400 g (14 oz) unrefined caster sugar
2 tablespoons honey
600 ml (1 pint) good red wine (but no call for a vintage!)
300 g (11 oz) Gorgonzola, cut into
cubes
Salad greens
Vinaigrette
Cut the chilli in half and add, with all the other ingredients except the pears and the cheese, to a saucepan just large enough to hold the pears. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes. Peel the pears and add to the liquid, adding water if necessary to cover the fruit. Cut out a circle of greaseproof paper slightly larger than the pot and place over the pears, pressing down so it comes into contact with the liquid. This will ensure even cooking - more so than a lid, as it is close to the fruit. Bring back to the boil and continue to simmer for at least 30 minutes (the time will depend on the size and ripeness of the fruit). The pears are cooked when a thin skewer is easily inserted through the centre.
When done, remove the pears with a slotted spoon and place gently in a bowl.
Turn the heat up and boil the liquid in the pan until reduced by half.
Toss some salad greens in a light vinaigrette and spoon a little into the centre of each plate. Top with a fan of pear and scatter over cubes of Gorgonzola. Drizzle some of the wine sauce around and serve.
A Festive Bird
Flavouring a bird by packing a herb butter under its skin and over the meat before roasting is a classic technique for adding flavour, so this year we have taken a spicy concoction of chillies, onion and garlic as the flavouring agent.
The marinading adds great, spicy flavours to the turkey, and the aubergine puree is a smashing contrast.
Mediterranean Turkey with Aubergine Puree
For one small-to-medium sized turkey:
3 chillies, de-seeded, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
The day before: wash and thoroughly dry the turkey. If using a frozen bird, make sure it is thoroughly defrosted. In a food processor, process the chillies, garlic, onions, oil and vinegar until reduced to a smooth paste.
Loosen the skin of the bird with your fingers, starting from the neck end. Be careful not to tear the skin as you ease it away from the flesh. Ease right down to the base of the legs. When you have done this, pack the spice mixture over both the breast and leg meat, under the skin. Leave overnight in the fridge, a larder or in a cold kitchen.
Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350 F, fan oven 160C. Weigh the bird, and allow 15 minutes per pound for roasting, with a further 15 minutes for resting (the bird, not yourself). Season the inside of the bird with salt and pepper, truss the legs together with kitchen string and place on a baking tray in the oven. Baste frequently as the bird cooks, and keep a close eye on it, especially if using a fan oven. If it starts to brown too early, place a sheet of foil over it to protect the breast, but don't enclose it in foil or it will steam rather than roast. It is cooked when the juices from the thigh run clear.
Aubergine Puree
2 large aubergines
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Buy good, heavy aubergines. Slice them in half. Peel the garlic and cut it in to narrow shards. With a knife, tear a slit in the aubergine flesh and insert the shards of garlic. Place on a baking tray, drizzle on some olive oil, and roast in a hot oven until the flesh of the aubergine is soft, about 30 minutes. Allow the aubergine to cool, then spoon the garlic-studded flesh away from the skin and place in a food processor. Process the aubergine and at the same time pour a stream of olive oil into the processor. You want to achieve a puree which is light, so keep stopping the processor and dunking a finger in until you have it just right. If it is too tight, just add more oil. When finished, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.
Parsley Brandade
Thisuce is based on the principal of the brandade, the classic fish and potato puree that is made in the south of France, where salt cod is pounded with olive oil until you get something which approaches the consistency of a mayonnaise. Here the herb parsley is substituted for the fish, and the cooked potato gives it a body that makes it a true sauce.
It's a useful Christmas sauce because it goes as well with cold turkey and ham as it does with hot roasted vegetables, particularly roasted carrot and parsnip.
It's wonderful dolloped in to a soup, set alongside a composed salad, or spread in a baguette to make a bumper leftovers sandwich with all of the above. Don't make it in a food processor, however, as the blades rip the parsley too fiercely and turn the potato to glue: it has to be a mortar and pestle.
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
half teaspoon salt
4 full handfuls of fresh parsley leaves (no stalks, Japanese or
Italian parsley works best)
third of a cup cooked, mashed potato
approximately half cup olive oil
Pound the garlic and salt using a pestle and mortar until you get a paste. Slowly add in handfuls of parsley, pounding as you do. When all the parsley is added, pound for about six minutes until you get a smooth paste, then pound in the potato. Carefully pour in the olive oil, and continue pounding until you get the consistency of a mayonnaise.
Brandy Ice Cream
This is one of those recipes which is almost too good to be true. It doesn't require an icecream machine. It is a cinch to make - just don't overwhip the cream - and it is a dream date for a good Christmas pud. It comes from Josceline Dimbleby's Complete Cookbook.
2 large egg whites
good pinch of salt
175 g (6 oz) demerara sugar
6 tablespoons water
4-6 tablespoons brandy
450 ml (three-quarters pint) whip- ping cream
Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl with the salt until they stand in soft peaks. Add the sugar to the water in a saucepan and dissolve over a low heat, then increase the heat and boil fiercely for three minutes without stirring. Pour immediately on to the egg whites in a thin stream, whisking all the time with an electric whisk at high speed. Then very gradually whisk in the brandy to taste.
Continue whisking until it is really thick and looks like a very smooth meringue mixture.
In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until thick but not too stiff and then gently but thoroughly fold it in to the egg-white mixture with a metal spoon.
Pour the mixture into a large serving bowl and freeze overnight (or for several days if more convenient) before serving.